Professor Lilac Crosby
November 18, 2011 5:43 PM
Shield me with your... pipe? [First and second years!] by Professor Lilac Crosby
“…Wrimlet, Morana.” With that final name, Lilac finished the attendance for her beginners’ class. She still didn’t have the names down quite yet (although she knew Miss Wrimlet, a member of her own House). She’d gotten pretty adjusted to seeing the faces of the new first years by this point, but it continually seemed somewhat strange walking into her intermediate class and seeing now-third years like Hope Brockert and Addison Thorton. Even odder still was the fourth-year class; she’d started at Sonora when that particular class was mere first years themselves.Students, just like she herself, grew up ever so quickly. Her very own niece, while still in the beginners’ class, was a second year already. In all honesty, she enjoyed the first and second years a great deal because they were so young still and so rapidly changing. However, she was probably the least free with herself in that class: she tried very, very hard not to be a complete dork and embarrass Sally.
To the considerably newly-christened first and second years she spoke. ‘Now that that’s all in order, I bet you’re wondering why there’s a metal pipe on each of your desks.” The tubes were about two feet long and not as heavy as they looked at all, easy to lift for most students. She’d taken every precaution she could think of for special cases; when Valerie Lennox had come in, for example, the twenty-nine year old had been sure to guide her to a desk where the pipe was smaller and even lighter. Any other students with similar medical concerns were addressed in such fashion as well. She always did her best for such students.
The grey-eyed witch grabbed the pipe off of her own desk, proportionately longer as she was larger than the students and could likely hold more. “Imagine this, if you will: you’re all grown up. You’re an Auror. Someone chases you into a dark alley. Something’s happened that you can’t escape. What do you do then?” Lilac paused briefly to glance across the students. The usual variety of opinionated faces seemed true. “You need a shield, but all the only thing available is a metal pipe from one of the buildings.”
Wand directed decisively at the pipe, she incanted, “Paerdecto!” In the blink of an eye, the pipe was a shield. “Now, note that the composition of the pipe has not changed. Strengthened a little, maybe, but not changed. Most of this is just a shift in form. It is, however, now more resistant to magical damage, as it ought to be.” Otherwise, there really was no point to the spell in itself.
While she had spoken the incantation, it and its pronunciation had appeared on the board behind her. PAIR-deck-toe. “Be sure to realize that this may not do terribly much against stronger spells, but obviously it’s better than nothing.” Just as the pipe and its weight, the spell was not as challenging as it would have appeared. “Any questions? If not, go ahead and begin. Feel free to help each other out. Talking’s fine as long as it’s at a manageable level. I’ll be here if you need me for any reason.” On that note, the class was let loose. The brunette sat at her desk, straightening her ankle-length brown skirt a little as she did so. She absolutely abhorred such a tremendous amount of wrinkles, but she’d overslept a bit that morning.
OOC: Welcome to Transfig, first and second years! Let’s see some nice, creative, detailed posts. That makes me happy, plus you get points, which make you happy too! Everybody wins! Yay! Have fun, but don’t do bad things like writing for other people’s characters. Happy posting!
Subthreads: It would work better to use a shield that used to be a pipe by Theresa Carey, Pecari with Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus, Theresa
I'll...try? by Mellie Goodwin, Pecari with Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
Only if there's room after I shield me. by Alicia Bauer, Aladren with Angel Shield - Teppenpaw
I don't think it will do me any good (Professor) by Valerie Lennox, Crotalus with Prof. C.
All right, if you insist by Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus with Elijah Errant {Pecari}, Alexandra
Not what I'd have in mind. by Evan Brockert, Aladren with Andrina Thornton
Sorry, I'm too busy running the other way by Paul Bennett, Crotalus
Class closed (nm) by Prof. C.
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Professor Lilac Crosby
Shield me with your... pipe? [First and second years!]
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Professor Lilac Crosby
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Alicia Bauer, Aladren
November 21, 2011 2:10 AM
Only if there's room after I shield me. by Alicia Bauer, Aladren
Alicia was in a bad mood as she took a seat in the Transfiguration classroom, enough that it was hard to smile cheerfully at Professor Crosby and respond to the roll call with a bright, happy, enthusiastic “Here!” instead of snapping the “present” she would have preferred anyway. She kept her eyes on a spot just below the professor’s rather than meeting them when she said it, too, and thought determinedly about how everyone she’d met so far had liked her because she was the best of the Bauer girls so the professor would be less likely to catch any irritation in her large brown eyes. She couldn’t be seen to be upset about something as stupid as this.She was now discovering the eternal truth that, sooner or later, all girls accustomed to a certain lifestyle learned at school: that her closet here was not as spacious as her closet at home. She had been noticing such things for a few days, but had ignored it and abruptly found herself with only a very few weather-appropriate outfits left, none of which she really wanted to wear.
It was, she knew, a stupid thing. Being mildly annoyed about it would have been all right, but she had been so upset while she was getting dressed that she’d nearly started crying. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d really wanted to cry about something.
That time, she’d done it, alone in her room. Here, though, she was living with three other girls and had needed to move along to get a good seat in her first class, so she’d decided to forget about tears and try to avoid introspection – something that wasn’t very hard for her – in favor of getting dressed out of what she had, the green robes going over a straight, knee-length gray dress with large beads that looked like pearls sewn around the round neckline and matching gray low heels. Her bangs were tied back again, today with ribbons of green, cream, and silver to match the rest of the outfit. The amount of time it had taken to get all the ribbons tied so they would stay together the way she wanted them to hadn’t done anything for her temper, but she had gritted her teeth and put up with it. The rest of her hair hung straight to her shoulders, tucked back to show off her princess-cut diamond earrings, the only jewelry she wore besides a narrow silver bracelet on her right wrist.
Once she was done, she had looked at herself in the mirror and admitted, grudgingly, that she did think she looked good. That was the only reason she wasn’t still nearly sick with temper. It wasn’t quite how she wanted to look to the professors, thought, and that, along with just not having her way, was why she was still in a bad mood anyway, or so she thought. It was the best she could do until the wash came back, though, so she’d forced herself to smile at the mirror until it looked real, just the way Gramma Alma had taught her, and then she’d cheerfully said good morning to her roommates and gone to breakfast.
Now, in Transfiguration, she really could not care less why there was a pipe on her desk, but she smiled widely when Professor Crosby said she was sure they were all interested in that, looking up but again at the point just below the professor’s eyes. She’d read about shy people doing that because it looked like making eye contact, but she didn’t mind stealing it despite not having the problem it was to correct. She didn’t think she had much use for a shield, but the idea amused her anyway, so she smiled a little to herself for a moment before she got back to business.
“This is a little unusual, isn’t it?” she remarked to her neighbor. “I wonder what made her think of teaching us it today."
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Alicia Bauer, Aladren
Only if there's room after I shield me.
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Alicia Bauer, Aladren
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Angel Shield - Teppenpaw
November 21, 2011 9:29 PM
... by Angel Shield - Teppenpaw
Breakfast had gone well today. Normally Angel would eat plain oatmeal, but the prairie elves idea of plain and his were a bit different. He couldn’t just ask them to remake it so Angel decided to try something different. Two pieces of plain white toast actually agreed more readily with his touchy stomach than even the blandest oatmeal. So it was with a small smile brushing his pale lips that Angel made his way to Transfiguration.He took a seat and though he knew it was pointless took out a blank sheet of parchment and one of his poor ragged quills. Lady Cynthia had supplied him with exactly one quill for each week he would be attending school. And this week’s quill was a pitiful sight. The feather was completely tattered by Angel’s restless paper white fingers. At the moment the quill lay abandoned next to the parchment as his pale hands explored the length of metal on the table. What it was he didn’t know, but in the end it didn’t matter. The class was transfiguration after all, so the thing would become something else entirely when the class was finished.
His ruby gaze rose fully for the brief moment the professor demonstrated the spell. Soft pink lips shaped the words after her as his intense stare captured the wand movements. In an instant the Professor’s pipe was a shield, and with the casting finished Angel’s eyes dropped once more to the tabletop and the waiting pipe.
“Yes.” Angel agreed quietly, his crimson gaze remaining downcast, but he watched the girl next to him from the corner of his eye. The assignment didn’t seem any more or less usual that anything else they had been asked to do in their classes, but if she said it was unusual then it must be so. Even if it wasn’t he would have agreed. What she said next didn’t appear to be a question so Angel remained silent.
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Angel Shield - Teppenpaw
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Angel Shield - Teppenpaw
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Alicia
November 25, 2011 2:30 AM
Indeed. by Alicia
Alicia had not really looked at who she was speaking to, but the lack of response made her glance up a little quicker than she would have and immediately tense slightly in her seat and twitch the one side of her robes a little closer to her without even thinking about it, though she flushed as soon as she noticed. She had noticed the very…unusual boy the first night, of course, and had noticed that he was unusual even beyond the albinism since then, but this was the first time she’d found herself in direct contact with him. Normally, she was sure she would have more control of herself, but he had taken her off-guard.She looked at him without much expression for a moment. There could have been more of a contrast in their looks, but not, she thought, too much, with her shining brown hair and brown eyes versus his very pale hair and unfortunate eyes and a pallor almost enough to make Rachel – whose golden hair and blue eyes and skin to match had been a source of envy for her for as long as she could remember – look dark. Even their clothes were at odds, his all in black and white while she was in gray. If she’d wanted to, she could have thought that was Symbolism, like Anne always tried to point out in books to her, both when she was being a tutor and more argumentatively when she remembered there were barely a dozen years between them and forgot a few of those to boot and treated Alicia almost like a person.
She didn’t want to, though. She rather wanted to move seats. She ignored that, though. She wouldn’t marry him unless he were more fabulously wealthy than anyone she had ever met before in her life, she thought, as much because he just seemed odd as because of him having a weirder genetic quirk than the one which had resulted in her mother somehow sharing a parent with an idiot like Aunt Lavinia, but the professor might well disapprove if she moved. That annoyed her more, but there was nothing she could do about it. The professors, Jeremy had told her, were oddly liberal for the institution most known in the country as a place full of purebloods – and besides, he might have a fortune. Very rich people, very familied people, very secure people could do and say much more of what they liked than people like her and hers, the best of whom were still going up in the world.
Alicia was going to further than any of them had so far. Granddad’s second marriage had been reasonable, Momma’s brilliant for her station, and Aunt Helena’s impending one was supposed to be even better in some ways, but she would top them all. It had been getting better and better steadily for them, and she was the youngest Layne girl, the only true Layne-Douglas girl, whatever her surname was or who had technically grown up in the same household as her. Her sisters might or might not amount to much, but even her mother and her aunt and her step-grandmothers would someday have to smile politely while they curtsied to her whenever they met. But only if she didn’t do something stupid now, in school, like have a temper tantrum because the professor who would soon be a Mrs. Brockert might not like something even if it did turn out he was just a weirdo and not a useful weirdo.
“I wonder if the professor thought of your name when she was planning the lesson,” she said finally, with a slight smile for the pun, not thinking that he might think it was strange that she knew his last name. She thought she knew the names of most of the normal people in their classes now, never mind his. “We’re making shields, and someone in the class is named Shield. Isn’t that funny?” She frowned a little - not very much; it caused wrinkles - and added, "That is your name, isn't it? I haven't gotten it mixed up? I'm not always very good with names." She was, though, usually a very good liar, she thought. Momma never realized anything, as far as she could tell, though it was true Momma just thought of her as a stupid baby.
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Alicia
Indeed.
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Alicia
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Angel
November 29, 2011 10:26 PM
... by Angel
Angel noticed the girl next to him stiffen and shift slightly away from him when she glanced up. The pale Teppenpaw offered no reaction to the movement as it was familiar to him. Any time Lady Cynthia’s eyes fell on him she had a similar reaction, though her face often reflected the revulsion she felt for the Shield child. Unless they had company, then the woman offered pleasant features to the guest, and on the rare occasions that he wasn’t banished to his room, sharp glares at him when the guest wasn’t paying attention.The fact that she continued to speak to him was unexpected when coupled with her initial reaction. He gave a slight shrug in response to her question about the lesson. What the Professor chose to teach was unlikely to be based on the name of one student, but Angel kept this observation to himself. “Yes, Angel Shield.” Angel confirmed in his near whispering tone. That she knew his name without him offering an introduction was somewhat startling, but then again his looks coupled with his family name were bound to draw attention. No matter how unwanted said attention might be.
Taking a slow breath Angel drew his wand. Even though he would be the last person to understand irony, even he could appreciate the inherent irony his wand represented. 10 and a half inches of Ebony wood, with unicorn hair core, the pitch black wood clashed harshly with his white skin, but seemed perfectly at home in his normally loose grip. Unlike a quill, which Angel held like it might turn and bite him at any moment, the wand was almost an extension of him, like shadows given solid form.
”Paerdecto” Angel incanted, and instantly, as swiftly as the Professor’s had a moment before, the pipe became a shield. It was a simple affair, lacking in any ornamentation but clearly a shield. This was something Lady Cynthia had been perplexed about, the boy could hardly scratch out his own name, and if he were given a book of spells to perform he was as helpless as a muggle. But, if he saw a spell performed, it was his. Considering how terrible his written work was turning out to be, Angel thought that his ability to mimic spells would hopefully be enough to keep him from being a complete failure.
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Angel
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Alicia
November 30, 2011 6:27 PM
What? I am to be beaten by this... by Alicia
Alicia wished he would speak up, because while she could hear him, the way he whispered made her feel as though she were in a novel scene by a deathbed or like they were doing something furtive. They were sitting in class and working on a spell. There was nothing remotely secretive about that, nothing they’d need to sneak and whisper to do. Alicia was very clear on what was and was not worthy of that kind of behavior, and this was not even on the list. They were expected to speak to each other on this occasion.“Mine’s Alicia Bauer,” she said, a little louder than usual. She grimaced slightly and reminded herself not to try to compensate for him. That was just the wrong way to go about it. She didn’t need or want to do that. Not least because it would draw too much attention to her, and she didn’t want too much attention right now. Only when she was doing absolutely perfectly, better than anyone else in the class, did she want everyone looking at her in class. Right now, she was not, she was just here, and that was that.
A moment later, the desire not to be looked at too much at the moment grew exponentially when he got the spell right, first time, perfect to the last. Her dark eyes narrowed as she looked at the shield on his desk and lowered her lashes to conceal it, her hand tightening slightly on her wand as she did. He had set a standard, and now she had to surpass it. First time, only time, simply perfection. That was what she had to accomplish. His shield existed; hers had to be gilded.
“Very nice,” she said levelly, then tried the spell herself, focusing all her will on that elaborate shield. “Paerdecto.”
There was a clatter, a ring of metal on wood, as the pipe leapt from her desk and was pulled down again by gravity. It was now a flat piece, rather than a round one, but it was warped, bent in the middle as though it had been curved. A battered shield, its thin layer of gilt coming away in patches, its shape irregular. Poor craftsmanship. “Very nice indeed,” she remarked again to Angel. “You did better than me. What did you do while you were saying the spell?” Since she couldn't see a way to benefit from being his inferior right now, she had to beat him, and if she had to use him in order to get to the place where she could beat him, then she'd do that happily.
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Alicia
What? I am to be beaten by this...
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Alicia
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Angel
December 07, 2011 12:55 AM
... by Angel
Angel gave a slight nod at the loudly spoken name, fixing it in his mind along with her features observed from the corner of his red gaze. It was difficult, going from only a hand full of people he interacted with to an entire school full. Every introduction Angel gave the person his full attention so he could fix their name and face in his mind. It wouldn’t do to address someone by the wrong name.He could almost taste the annoyance in her words after he performed the spell. Why other students had difficulties with something so easy. Maybe it’s like reading? Angel mused as he watched her attempt without appearing to do so. As in other wandwork classes, with other students, her first attempt was less than perfect. Why? It made no sense to the young albino, that he should be able to accomplish the task so easily while they struggled. Again, he thought of reading, and writing, and how easily the other students could do both. Just as he was born to casting perhaps they were born to reading?
Fidgeting uncomfortably in his seat, Angel continued looking at the table in front of him as her words hung unanswered between them. It was a question he’d been asked before, Lady Cynthia’s waspish voice demanding to know how he could perform the heating and shielding charms to protect his feet so easily, his lack luster response that had her throwing her hands in the air and deciding he must just be an idiot savant. How to find the words to describe breathing to a fish? A bird would have an easier time explaining how it flew. “Did...as shown.” He offered weakly, knowing it wasn’t what she wished to know but having nothing else to give.
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Alicia
December 09, 2011 2:46 PM
Very well. by Alicia
Alicia found herself faced with a decision, one which didn’t suit her: she had to decide if she believed him.Well, sort of. Clearly he was quite powerful, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to do it, and obviously he had done as they were shown. She believed all of that without having to think about it. The question was if she believed in his manner, which suggested he probably really did have no idea how he’d done it.
Not, she’d realized early in her life, being a pretty girl, she had learned to work against that by being unstoppably perfect, from how she dressed to how she did her hair to how she presented herself to each individual she came across, but she was just normal-looking. Angel Shield was not normal-looking, didn’t even have a normal name, really, and while maybe it would be possible to be so good at everything, so charming and well-dressed and smart and everything that all this would be overlookable, in a trashy millionaire kind of way…maybe it wouldn’t be, too, she wasn’t sure. So maybe he’d gone the other way, and decided to pretend to be mentally strange as well as a physical oddity, and was really quite rational and was inwardly having a good laugh at her expense.
She’d read one of the books that came with one of her tutors, one which asserted children her age were supposed to be open and trusting. Alicia’s suspicion was that the author of that book – well, pamphlet, really; that had been bad enough that she hadn’t touched the books – had been played, and the kid he had interviewed had won game, set, and match. Raised to constantly think twice and, when in doubt, lie as boldly as necessary to make herself look better, she’d come to the conclusion that everyone was like that, only some people were just too bad at it to have any success in life, with honest people being those that realized this about themselves, or they were good at it but found it hard not to lie even to themselves. Her mother was that second kind; she openly advocated all Alicia’s double-dealings – well, all the ones she knew about – but would cry and whine if she were called out on doing the exact same things, being the exact same things. It was a helpful trait when Alicia was stuck being her daughter, that way her mother had of wanting to be a bad person but think of herself as one of the mythical good ones, but sometimes – often – Alicia despised her for it.
If this guy was either kind, he was very good at it – unorthodox, but good at it. She wasn’t sure if she’d have any respect for his method or not, since she couldn’t see what it would get him that wouldn’t make her want to literally scratch someone’s eyes out, but she wouldn’t be able to fault his craftsmanship too much. She decided to probe a little more before she made up her mind about anything.
“Yeah, so did I,” she said chirpily, with a little laugh, slightly wanting to kill herself, “and you can see how that worked out.” She made herself laugh again as she gestured toward her work as it slowly made its way back toward being a pipe. “So…did you just have a really good mental picture of a shield, or do you see shields a lot, or did you concentrate really hard, or….” She had her eyes widened in question, her smile firmly in place. She couldn’t show any annoyance again. She had messed up like a fool too much in this class already. She had to sparkle.
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Alicia
Very well.
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Angel
December 11, 2011 3:11 PM
... by Angel
He had been correct in thinking his response was not acceptable to Alicia. Even though she smiled, the demand for knowledge rang bell like under her words and Angel listened carefully. He knew that any explanation he could arrive at would be rejected, and Angel had found that most questions held the answer the questioner wanted to hear. As her words flew by Angel plucked out the important ones, the ones that would satisfy her curiosity.She’d offered three answers that would work well enough and Angel chose the last “Concentrate hard.” The fact that concentration had nothing to do with his casting didn’t matter to Angel, only that he gave an answer that Alicia accepted. Stop lying Angel Lady Cynthia’s low angry hiss mocked his attempts to pacify Alicia. But, that response meant something different to him. He didn’t really grasp that it was not telling the truth that got the older woman so angry with him. For Angel, being caught in a lie simply meant he’d failed to find the answer the person had wanted to hear. Not that he’d lied about what he’d said.
Angel nudged the shield to the side of his desk indifferently. Having successfully completed the task, he lost interest in the end result. It was similar to his sketches, which came just as easily to him. Though, if he thought back on the past when he’d stumbled upon the chest of discarded art supplies as a tiny child in the attic he would have remembered how the first wavering lines had been as difficult as the first letters he’d attempted to write. Endless hours of sketching had given him an ease with a pencil that reflected his ease with a wand.
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Alicia
December 13, 2011 11:24 PM
Even you may yet prove one day to be of use to me. by Alicia
Concentrating very hard. It had looked effortless enough when he did it, but then, she knew all about making things look easier than they were. There were days when she’d rather try to lift a tree out of the ground with her bare hands than smile cheerfully at one more person, but if that didn’t look easier than it was, then she was sure someone would have called her on it sometime. Momma or Gramma Alma would correct her as soon as they got her in private for seeming insincere; it was a failure. No matter what she did in life, be it marry above her station like her mother and aunt or become a businesswoman like her mother, she could not seem insincere.“Thanks so much,” she said with enthusiasm, throwing in another bright smile for good effect. “I thought when I was doing it the first time that I wasn’t doing that well enough, that I wasn’t concentrating enough. I’ll try it again now.” Something about his manner, whether it was real or not, made her feel the need to state the obvious.
She tried the spell again, trying to clear her head completely of all thoughts about how to use him and whether she should bother and was anyone watching her right this second without her knowing and what did the professor think of her so far and everything else, trying to fix her mind completely on having a shield, her eyes even screwing up in concentration because she forgot to think that squinting and frowning were forbidden because they’d eventually cause wrinkles and were unattractive right now anyway. Nothing but the shield existed, nothing but the shield could exist, and the shield had to exist. It had to go right, it had to work this time, she had to get it right.
The metal shivered, twisted, and then formed into, more or less, a shield. It wasn’t as ornate as she would have liked, it wasn’t as thick as she would have liked, she had no idea if it would even work, but it was shield-shaped, and that was the important part for now. She gave Angel another smile, this one delighted.
“It worked,” she said, deciding not to actually clap her hands. “Thank you, again, that was the trick. I really appreciate it.”
She’d remember it another time. It was hard to just pay attention to one thing like that, but she’d deal with that and get used to it, at least until she built up enough strength of magic to not have to anymore. The key was just to not have to squint. She hated the thought of people seeing her do something and them all knowing that it wasn’t easy, that she wasn’t totally okay with it and everything around it. It felt like a failure all on its own, as much as seeming insincere would, and…she had never failed. She couldn’t start now. She couldn’t lose her perfect record just barely into her first year of formal schooling.
She'd go read some Transfiguration theory later, she decided, in the library, something beyond the textbook. That would help. She knew some already, but it clearly wasn't enough. Understanding would help, too.
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Alicia
Even you may yet prove one day to be of use to me.
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